Dear Peter,
I like this conversation.

What makes the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam the same? Each religion owns Him by referring to the history of that God with Abraham. Starts with Judaism, obviously, and with Abraham, but Christianity incorporates Tanak into the Christian Bible. Islam calls Him Allah, but makes Jesus a prophet of Allah. Certainly there are differences or else there would not be three religions. But the central idea of a religion is human relationship with God, and that God is the Abrahamic divinity. Spirit is the same concept (I developed this in my book Spiritual Competency in Psychotherapy). So, when you point to the differences, you point to the way the religion is structured, but if you look at God Himself, He’s the same God. There is God, and there is what people say about that God. In a universe, in a physics that seems almost mystical, the person of God is the main consideration. I have held for some time that the Bible is theocentric rather than Christocentric. Centered on God and what that being is doing rather than on how human beings are saved.  To me there is a bigger picture and the Bible only pulls back the curtain a few times.

On the Protestant and Catholic Gods relating to people differently.  What you say is not true.  Linda is Catholic and I am Protestant.  I go to mass with her and she goes to the service with me.  We are studying the Nicene Creed, which is recited in every mass. That group is growing, but it consists of both Catholics and Protestants, and the Protestant church also believes in the things contained in the Nicene Creed. The defining work on the creeds of Christendom was written in the 1800s by Philip Schaff, and his scholarship is esteemed and used by both the Catholic and Protestant churches. The Pope to be obeyed? This one just said that Ukraine should surrender.  Before that he said that priests could bless gay marriages (that whole issue aside). Individual priests and their churches are not in agreement with the Pope.  The priest conducts the mass, and he hears confession. The Catholics believe that the elements (wine and bread) turn into the body of Christ (flesh and blood).  The Protestants hold to versions of this that take what Jesus said about communion and His body figuratively. But both Catholics and Protestants believe that Jesus gave himself and fulfilled the type of the passover lamb so that “by his blood” we are saved (i.e. just like the blood spread on the door of the home in Egypt saved those inside from the pestilence sweeping the city). Individual Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, walk through life with their own relationship with God, and that relationship is not mediated by clergy (it can be supported and helped or undermined, but no one takes the place of Jesus, who is the actual mediator between human beings and God).

To be saved you have to accept the sacrifice. Not quite. When I was teaching in Kyiv I had to rely on George to interpret what I was saying and I had to trust that he was interpreting me correctly. To have eternal life, you have to trust that Jesus is correctly revealing/interpreting the Father. It’s not a matter of power, oppression, or being small and mean spirited (you must believe or you can’t join the club).  It’s just a matter of how things work. So, when I was teaching in Kyiv I had to trust that George was accurately translating. I could have said, “I refuse to do this your way. I don’t trust an interpreter," and then go on to speak in English to a room where many people simply would have been lost.  Jesus defined eternal life as having the knowledge of God. If you realize that to know in this case is to have experiential knowledge (as to know a person through sexual relationship), and that when Jesus equated eternal life with the subjective, personal experience of God, then we are not talking about some abstract assertion, like when people recite a pledge of allegiance. You don’t have to pledge allegiance to God to have eternal life. You simply have to turn toward Him like Peter did when he told Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief.” If you were hiking in rough territory and came to a rope bridge across a deep ravine, you would have to trust the ropes, trust the bridge in order to get to the other side. You could say I prefer not to.  Ok. Then you’d have to stay where you were.

Not a free gift? Absolutely a free gift, and absolutely the choice is yours.  You are free to choose what to believe and what to do. You are not free to also choose the consequences of your choice. You would not, I suspect, say that a person is free to choose to shoot little children in grade school and then also choose not to have to pay for that. Would you?  You are free to stay on one side of the ravine, but if you do, then you would stay there without the experiential relationship with God. You don’t get two choices, and that’s just how things are.

The muddiness of a world vs the “plannedness” of Christianity. Do you think the Christian life, walking with a being who cannot be sensed in any normal physical way, who at times leads a person into great sacrifice, pain, loss, hardship and in doing so expects that person to keep trusting… do you think that is any less muddy or seemingly chaotic than being without God in this world? If you do, you have swallowed a deception.  There is a movie out, just came out, titled Cabrini. Watch that movie and then tell me how “planned” (ie. predictable and boring) the walk with God in this world actually is.  Tell such an assertion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., or a host of other people to whom I could point. Going down front and accepting the Lord at some service and then going back to simply sit in the pew each week and do some kind of rote, mundane religious obligation is not the real Christian life. Eternal life IS experience, but it results in knowledge, Peter. Real knowledge. Knowledge of oneself and of God.

The Russians are talking with God while shooting missiles at Ukraine? I know. Let’s put this another way. God said through the Prophet Micah that God requires that we act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God. Through the Prophet Amos, he said, ““I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them.” Finally, through Isaiah I think God might talk to individual Russians when he says in Isaiah 1:15-17 

"When you spread out your hands in prayer,
    I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
    I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
16 Wash and make yourselves clean.
    Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
    stop doing wrong.
17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow.”

When I was in Kyiv one of the lectures was on dealing with spiritual abuse, and I read for them part of Mark Twain’s war prayer. God is not obligated to do whatever we ask when we pray. God does not always respond. The Pope said he thought Ukraine should surrender. What does he think the Russians will do in their occupation of Ukraine? God does not smile on any of that.  Just because people say stupid things and then adorn themselves in self-righteousness doesn’t mean God has any part in it.

Finally, would I say that muddy people should be accepted in the house? I would say that people who like mud and from time to time get completely muddy ARE acceptable in the house if they just shower off first. That’s because God’s house has no mud in it whatsoever, and there is no mud in God’s being, no darkness. Just as there is a certain set of mathematical constants that govern the universe and things cannot exist in this universe without existing within the structure they provide, there is no shadow in the least in the being of God and His house is light, all light. No mud.  That is just the way things are.

Phil

> On Mar 11, 2024, at 11:50 AM, Peter Philippson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Phil,
> 
> Thank you for your answer.  See below:
> 
> On Mon, 11 Mar 2024 at 16:36, Philip Brownell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Peter,
> I think your point/question is a very good one. I also think that many Christians do not explore the nuances of salvation like you do here. What you say extends to people who don’t believe in God, but it also applies to people who believe in a different God, or belong to a different group of people who believe in the same God. Muslims. Jews. Christians. They all believe in the same God. 
> What makes that God the same?  Is the Christian God who was incarnated as Jesus the same as the Jewish or Muslim God who was not?  I know that it is good marketing to say (as Paul did very effectively) that this God is not something new - though he described that as the 'unknown God' rather than the Jewish God.  The Muslims did that with both Judaism and Christianity.  But the Gods of those 3 religions are not the same as each other and are not seen to have the same relationship with believers.  The Jewish God is the God of a people, individual worship is not meaningful, there is no concept of a soul or original sin.  The Muslim God is not represented by a priesthood who would get between the individual and God (what are seen by non-Muslims as priests are emphatically not, they are acknowledged scholars.

>  Do they go to church together? NO. Catholics and Protestants. Do THEY go to church together? No. Why not? Because people stumble over details of history and theology. People do what Jesus said when he criticized the religious leaders of his day. His disciples were picking wheat on the Sabbath, and the leaders got on Jesus’s case and told him to tell them to stop (because you’re not supposed to work on the Sabbath). Jesus told them that they made rules that burdened people with a host of laws and a legalistic system that was oppressive but they didn’t do anything to help relieve the pain of it all.  He said, “The Sabbath was made for people not people for the Sabbath.” God had built a rest into the religious system, but people had turned it into a task.  
> 
> Similarly, even the Protestant and Catholic Gods relate to people differently.  The Catholic God relates via the intermediary of the Church and the Pope, who are to be obeyed.  The Protestants are somewhere between the Catholics and the Muslims.  Those differences are not 'details', but central questions about how God relates to believers.  Of course I would say that these differences show that we are basically making it all up! 
> 
> People create walls that separate and alienate.  In gestalt therapy we have called that “othering.” I’m not sure that God, when you really get down to it, creates those same walls.  Linda and I are questioning this whole thing a lot more now, and perhaps it’s our age. I don’t know. I know that some of our friends who are our age are also questioning.  Two in particular lived in Palestine for five years, and they are not very happy about what Israel is doing in Gaza.  When we talk and think together about the extent of Christ’s sacrifice, we find ourselves realizing that He died for everyone, and that includes the Muslims.  We realize that nobody has every bit of theology exactly right, and so everyone is off somewhere; so, where is the dividing line that puts one person in and the other out?  I know that Sylvia Crocker believed that everyone is going to heaven because God loves people and Jesus died for everyone.  I don’t think it’s that simple, but I don’t think, going in the other direction, that people we might think are not going to heave will actually be kept out. 
> 
> I understood that for Christians this was the point.  Jesus died for everybody, but the implication is that to be 'saved' you have to accept the sacrifice, it was not a free gift. 
> 
> If you think about the extent of Christ’s sacrifice, there is no end to it. He didn’t just die for a few people living in a small country next to the Mediterranean. He didn’t just die for the people who would believe in Him and come to be called “Christians.”  He died to wipe out the stain of sin that separated every single person from God. I think the word “sin” is inflammatory. C.S. Lewis once described human beings as little children who would rather play in the mud of the gutter than to enter into a beautiful English garden. Imagine a group of such children, covered in mud, who were invited to come into the house where goodies had been baked and were waiting for them to eat.  All they had to do was to step under a running shower before entering the house. Those who chose to do so, which of course meant getting soaking wet, could come in, but those who preferred the mud could not (because the owner of the house did not want them bringing mud into the house!).  Regardless, the owner of the house still loved them all and made a genuine offer to each one. 
> 
> Given a choice, I would rather be out in the muddy hills than an artificially tidy garden, and bring my own food rather than give up that choice. 
> 
> Are non-believers damned? What is a non-believer?
> 
> I am a non-believer.  Really.  I'm glad you have found a belief that sustains you so well.  Really.  For me what you have got is not knowledge, though it is an experience.  I prefer the muddiness of the world to the plannedness of your world, and I am happy not to come into a house where that is not wanted.
>  When I was ten years old I would probably have been called a non-believer.  I lived in an alcoholic home.  Sometimes it was bad, and I would feel miserable and walk down the hill behind our house and sit under a big fruit tree. There I would watch the billowy clouds float by in the air currents over the Sacramento Valley. I would talk.  Sometimes to myself, in my mind and sometimes out loud, and go over the events that made me feel bad. I would wonder why it had to be that way.  I would tell the clouds, tell the sky, tell … WHO? That I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.  Was God listening? Was God there with me? I have come to realize that he was as much there and interacting with me, in and through my thoughts and feelings—in my spirit—as He was when I addressed Him as a believer and told Him He would have to pick from among the many matches I was receiving from E-Harmony when I was alone in Bermuda. Linda’s picture came up. Her face was painted red, and she had a chicken hat on. Then, from over my left shoulder came all at once a thought that did not come from me. “This is the one.”  (And she was.) It was so strong that it was almost audible. A lot of people think that God is the watch maker who set the watch ticking and then vanished. That we don’t hear from God today like the people in the Bible did. That is wrong.  So, people have contact with God, and they are given a certain amount of knowledge through that experience. The key is whether a person responds and moves toward God or brushes it aside and stands outside the house still covered in mud. And of course the dialogue that people have with God, like this, is life long.  Who am I to say that this one is “saved” and that one is not? That is beyond my capacity. But I believe God is having this dialogue with Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists, agnostics… Buddhists in Nepal, indigenous peoples in various places… everyone.  Russians and Ukrainians. 
> 
> And the Russians are having a dialogue with a God who blesses their missiles and curses the gay people (and so do many Americans).  The Taliban curses women, people who dance, gay people.  What does it mean to say that there is one God who has those different dialogues? 
> 
> So, Linda and I have begun hosting conversations at our home in which we bring together people from different walks of life, differing cultures, different times of life. We talk about all kinds of things. We had a couple over recently, and the woman reminded me of you, Peter.  She was talking about the quantum field, but she’s in the process of joining the Catholic Church.  Sometimes I meet with groups of men and we drink whiskey together, smoke cigars, and talk theology. The last time I did that, I told one pastor who was there, “When you came to preach at our church, you really pissed me off!” I prefer being as transparent as I can and trusting in the process.  And that’s the way I am with this whole issue of what it takes to be saved.  When we look out at the universe, and when we consider the revision of physics that is now underway given the lates things we’ve been able to see, it is all WAY beyond me. God is much larger and more complex than I had imagined, and I am puny and fragile in His presence. Given that, I am amazed that He bothers with me.
> 
> I would say that the idea of a God who plans the world has become a totally unnecessary hypothesis in this complex understanding of physics, where chaos organises and species evolve without a prior plan, but that muddiness scares people so they try to bring God in anyway.  The question for me is not whether God bothers with me but whether I bother with God!
> 
>  
> So, am I going to stand up in church and say that unbelievers are going to heaven? No. As good as your thinking is on this subject, that question just doesn’t apply to the actual situation.
> 
> But would you say muddy people should be as acceptable in the house?
> 
> Peter 
> 
> Phil
> 
>> On Mar 10, 2024, at 2:34 PM, Peter Philippson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Phil,
>> 
>> I honour your stance politically, and your loving commitment to Ukraine.  I have just done a 3-day workshop online with people at the Kyiv Gestalt University and they are wonderful people.
>> 
>> I still have a BIG problem with 'God loves you anyway'.  What do you believe your God's response would be when I die not believing he exists?  If, like the majority of more fundamentalist Christians, you believe that I will be punished for eternity, then that, for me, is how the fundamentalists came to identify with Trump.  They are both happy to receive praise and cheers and money, and say they love us, but turn vengeful if we don't believe in him (or her).  In fact the differences are that Trump's vengeance is less terrible, and we can't avoid it by voting in a different God.
>> 
>> So will you drop Trump-God and say in your congregation that non-believers are not damned, or will you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel?  I imagine that this is an unwelcome question, but if you insist that God loves us, I think we need to know what that love means to you in practice.
>> 
>> Best wishes,
>> 
>> Peter
>> 
>> On Sun, 10 Mar 2024 at 20:09, Philip Brownell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Dan
>> I did not say that was ALL that I am doing.  I am also working on behalf of Ukraine. I am as I’ve said voting straight democrat. I am speaking my mind into whatever venue and medium I can. If there is something I CAN do, I am doing it. I can fast and pray. That’s something I can do. It’s not an empty, costless, effortless and ultimately futile exercise. (I love coffee!!) The practice will constantly remind me of the importance of what is going on. It will test my resolve. There are other benefits that are between me and God. It’s okay if you don’t understand or value what I’m saying. 
>> 
>> God loves you anyway. ❤️😇😜 and so do I. 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>>> On Mar 10, 2024, at 1:49 PM, Dan Bloom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Phil:
>>> 
>>> “Do” what you think is best for you.  If prayer and fasting are actions that you think might tilt the course of the universe, go for it.  Yet it reminds of the “you are in my hopes and prayers”  response to victims of gun violence.
>>> 
>>> I say this while maintaining my respect for your experience of being-in-the world-with-a god.
>>> 
>>> Dan
>>> 
>>> PS:  You typed that on an iPhone?  I can barely type understandable texts.  
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Mar 10, 2024, at 3:27 PM, Philip Brownell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Dear Jack,
>>>> Think figures of interest. We are all human. I don’t understand how the people whose figure is truly America first cannot see that America is best served to have Ukraine win. Totally win. The money designated for Ukraine is largely spent in the USA building or resupplying our reserves from what arms we send. It’s win-win. It’s probably one of the clearest examples of Trump serving himself rather than our country that he is taking the stance that he has. But even the people who have supposedly crawled out from under rocks are human beings with figures of interest; so, if we are ever going to get back to a politics of cooperation like what you say, we need to quit objectifying those whose difference is bewildering or even repulsive to our own values, beliefs, and figures of interest. I wish I could simply sit on my bench, talk with God, and let the world go to hell. But I can’t. I can’t fix it all. But I can do something, and I can (what’s that saying?) be the difference I want to see.  Donald Trump may win, but I am doing what I can to further a different outcome, and that includes prayer. I’m paraphrasing but Jesus told his followers that big things happen only through prayer and fasting. Will you join me in fasting one day a week and praying for his defeat until the election is over?  No coffee nor food for at least 24 hours. The fast could be something else you give up so that what you experience is an earnestness, an urgency. You may not believe in God; you may though sense that there is “something” responsible for the mathematical constants that structure our universe, something like a higher power about which you don’t know. Is this not a time for trying whatever a person CAN do?
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>> 
>>>>> On Mar 10, 2024, at 10:57 AM, Jack Neggerman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Phil.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I’m very impressed also with your Guts and integrity. There been a hostile takeover of your party, and a green light was given to the worst of Americans that came out from under their rocks.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  The party is in serious trouble which harms America and the world. I long for the way it used to be when partisans could respectfully collaborate. No doubt you do too!
>>>>> 
>>>>> I respect your guts and integrity to go against your own grain like this.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I wish you the best of health.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Jack Neggerman, Cincinnati, Ohio USA
>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Mar 8, 2024, at 1:44 PM, Peter Cole <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Wow Philip -- I am impressed!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> THank you for sharing your change of perspective.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Warmly
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Peter Cole
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 10:05 AM Peter Philippson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>>> That is a brave thing to say and do.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Peter
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Fri, 8 Mar 2024 at 16:43, Philip Brownell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>>> "You can't love your country only when you win." --J. Biden, State of the Union, 3/7/24Philip Brownell
>>>>>> I am voting straight democrat this time. NOT because I have suddenly become a progressive. NOT because I think Biden is the best thing we could possibly put forward. NOT because I think the Republicans have been evil all along, and I just now woke up. In fact, I'm not "woke." I'm sickened by the turn to myopia and the obstructing of aid to Ukraine that has gripped the Republican party and by the partisan politics that plays games with our country and people's lives. If I thought it would have a chance, I'd vote for a third party. And I'm not into futile resistance votes like "none of the above." I HAVE shaken loose from a previous political loyalty. More accurately I feel that people with whom I previously felt a kinship have become unrecognizable. I have personal peace about the future, because I know God personally, but I am still in this world, and while I'm here I have a responsibility to act responsibly.
>>>>>> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> Peter (Philippson)
>>>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>>> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
>>>>>> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
>>>>> 
>>>>> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
>>>> 
>>>> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
>> 
>> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Peter (Philippson)
>> [log in to unmask]
>> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
> 
> 
> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L,and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Peter (Philippson)
> [log in to unmask]
> ______________ Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.

______________
Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.